When it comes to large-scale solar thermal plants establishing new world records, there seems to be no end in sight: In this newsletter alone, we report on two of the largest solar thermal installations around the globe. One of them is the 3.4 MWth heat power plant in the US state of Arizona, commissioned in spring this year, which is leading the ranking of the world's largest solar cooling systems. The other is the 37 MWth district heating installation currently under construction in the small Danish town of Voyens, which is on its way to dwarfing today’s biggest solar heat system, the 27.5 MWth plant in Chile. In the future, solarthermalworld.org will allow you to always be up to date about the latest global developments in mega-watt solar heating and cooling projects. The database is going to be gradually extended to include both the global front runners and the largest plants of solar heat for various applications and countries all over the world. If you click on "project description" you find further background information about each project.

Rarely has a press release by German coating specialist Alanod been this short. And rarely has the solar thermal industry had so little knowledge about why the merger between the two European coating specialists Alanod and Almeco failed. Not only has the management of both groups been offering very few details on the merger’s failure. But the clients, the collector manufacturers themselves, have not had any reliable information about its collapse. After talks with several industry representatives, one possible version of the story behind the failure seems to emerge.

Netherland’s largest passive-house retrofit project in Roosendaal recently equipped 246 houses with new insulation and solar thermal energy systems. One special characteristic of the project was its systematic and quick execution, which allowed the tenants to stay in their homes. Once the renovation was up to speed, four houses were renovated in one week. On one day, the existing roof and windows were replaced by the new prefabricated roof and facade elements. Each day, one truck load for one house arrived on site and was mounted on the same day.

Share your research findings with the world. Take part in the second Research Video Competition until 25 September, and your video will be published on both solarthermalworld.org and a YouTube channel specifically created for this competition. If you send us an up to three-minute video or animation explaining your research project in an accessible and engaging way, you can win an iPad or a free conference ticket to SHC 2015.

The make-up of China’s solar thermal market is changing: The segment that used to guarantee the industry’s profits, the retail business of small thermosiphon systems for private households, has been declining in recent years. According to the annual surveys and market reports by Sun’s Vision, a consultancy located in Shandong province, the so-called solar thermal engineering market, which includes building integration and industrial process heat systems, increased by 50% in 2012 and 2013, after having grown by 35 % in 2011. The pie chart shows the individual categories of the building integration segment in 2013, which was the main driver of the national market.

“Channel partners are free to sell on their own without subsidy from Government of India,” the office memorandum by the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) stated on 12 August 2014. This is an important victory for India’s solar water heater manufacturers, which pre-financed around INR 3 billion (about EUR 37 million) in subsidised systems over the last years without being compensated by the MNRE. The manufacturers or their dealers had to sell the solar collector systems as net-of subsidy and claim reimbursement by the government later.